On the Nature of Things | Forum

noddy wrote:
this is another case of human pattern recognition gone wrong.

Activist historians and the journalists who create an audience for their pronouncements seek to counter right-wing views of Islam and the West as essentially distinct entities locked in permanent conflict. Such views, of course, do not survive contact with historical data, which offers a far more nuanced picture, one that, indeed, is precisely too rich and complicated to serve the goals of any contemporary political agenda, or to answer any question about Muslim integration, immigration, or identity in Europe today. Rather than attend to these nuances, however, many journalists and historians irresponsibly exaggerate certain facets that promote their own favored political narratives. In their eagerness to use history against the far-right, they only aggravate tensions and distort the historical record.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Nonc Hilaire wrote:What will future archeologists assume about us based on our souveniers?